Benefits to practitioners:

• Practioners are able to remain updated in their knowledge, keep up with developments in their field and enhance their ‘fitness to practice’.
• It enhances professional satisfaction

Benefit to the public:

• Guarantees them the assurance of quality of care and safety in practice by practitioners.

Benefit for the employers

• Ensuring that practitioners that are employed are the best available and will offer the best care
• Promotion can depend more consistently on evidence of professional development

THE SCOPE OF CPD

The contents shall be activities that will serve to develop or increase the knowledge, skills and professional performance of practitioners in the performance of their services for patients, the public and the profession. These are some of the areas identified but this list is by no means exhaustive and will be amended from time to time as the need is either identified or arises:

• Law and ethics of the profession
• Good record keeping
• Health administration and management in general including issues of finance and economics
• Updating clinical skills and information
• IT including computer assisted clinical programs
• Basic research skills
• Healthcare Financing

ACTIVITIES:

These are some of the activities identified by which the programmes can be carried out. This is by no means exhaustive and any other suggestions will be examined by the committee.

• Clinical meetings which follow a standard format determined by Council
• Scientific conferences and workshops which are pre-accredited
• Clinical/medical quizzes
• Peer-review of practice which follow standards prescribed by Council
• Peer-reviewed journal reviewer
• Post-Graduate courses being pursued by practitioners (if for non-registrable courses, will not gain the practitioner all the credits required per year)
• Research publications
• Faculty member at approved CPD events

Practitioners

The policy will be mandatory for:

• All Medical and Dental practitioners who are on the Provisional and Standing registers of the MDC
• Practitioners who have taken the pre-registration exams and are on the Temporary register.

This includes:

• Practitioners in public, private or quasi-governmental practice,
• Practitioners in the Security Agencies
• Practitioners in Research
• Practitioners in Laboratory work,
• Practitioners in Religious units,
• Practitioners in Public Health
• Practitioners in Politics

Guidelines for practitioners

• Cannot accumulate more than 10 credits in any set of activities in one day.
• Practitioners should check with Council about the credit status of any CPD activity before attending this activity; in other words, credits are not given retrospectively for activities, especially activities of reciprocal regulatory bodies.

PROVIDERS

DEFINITION
Any institutions or individual(s) who have the capacity to organise any programmes for CPD but who would require prior accreditation from Council which would be valid for a specified period

Credit points will need to be indicated on any notices for programmes
Council will train the relevant staff of these institutions on how documentation is done and certification is given and to be able to report back to the Council within 4 weeks of the activity.
Council reserves the right to send inspectors to the course or training. These inspectors will send in an independent report.
The Council may require video evidence of the activity to be provided.

Providers MUST NOT advertise programmes before accreditation is obtained.

CREDITS
TYPE- Verifiable credits only will be used for this year.
Activities classified as ‘verifiable’ will be required to satisfy the following criteria:

• Have concise educational aims and objectives
• Have clear spelt our anticipated outcomes
• Have clear written evaluation procedures
• Must provide practitioners with verifiable documentary evidence of attendance

NUMBER
For 2009:    20 credits including attendance at one Law and Ethics programme             towards 2010.

GUIDELINES FOR CREDIT AWARDS/DETERMINATION

VERIFIABLE CREDITS

Category 1 - COMPULSORY

	UP TO
Law and Ethics	5 Credits

Category 2

Multidisciplinary (one topic covering disciplines of medicine) events for one day	10 credits/event/day at least 3
Subject based events with hands on	7 creditS/event
Subject based events (oral only)	5 credits/event
Quizzes in Newsline	1 credit/quiz
Published research (peer reviewed)	3 credits/paper
Published research (non peer reviewed should be submitted to Council for assessment)	1 credit/paper
Faculty at accredited event	1 credit/paper
Clinical meetings (certified by HOD)	1 credit/event

Category 3 (Depending on duration and content, will attract ½ credit of above. Presenters at these meetings will, however, be awarded full credits)

Professional Association/ groupings/ Scientific meetings/Conferences	3 credits/event
District Directors/ Medical Superintendent conferences	3 credits/event quarterly
Online quizzes which award certificates	1 credits